The first thing to tackle was to find a topic that we could use with both second graders and fourth graders. We discussed a few different options, but finally narrowed it down to collaborative conversations. This is a challenging topic that begins in the earlier grades and continues throughout their elementary career. Now that we had our topic, it was time to decide our platform. Because our professor had mentioned utilizing the Smart Notebook software before in her classroom and the fact that we both have SmartBoards, we decided to use the Smart Notebook platform. Our next thing to tackle was creating the content. Together, we brainstormed what were the elements of a positive collaborative conversation. We ranked them in order from easiest to understand and do to the hardest to understand. We started planning our Notebook pages on Google Docs. This way we would already have what we wanted to say and what images/videos we to include. We collaborated on who would gather the multimedia so that we would be prepared to create the Notebook pages at one time.
Creating the Notebook pages was harder than we originally thought for a few reasons. First, the pictures that we had gathered would not copy into the Notebook pages from Google. We decided to try to get them first into Microsoft Word, then try to insert the pictures that way (which worked!) Second, we could not embed videos in easy way. We learned that Smart Notebook only can embed Flash Video, which does not work with a YouTube video. We had to embed a widget "Voki Aviator". This way we could embed a YouTube video into the page. Finally, I learned that I could easily convert a video using Google Drive and an app in Google Apps that converts video to a Flash Video file.
I was able to use this with my students. It was interesting to use this with my students. They were excited to do the activities and actually found interpreted things differently then I thought they would. The students seemed to grasp the concept and had great discussion because of the visuals. After I used the Notebook pages, my students voted on what they wanted to focus on. From there, we created a reflection sheet that the students will use to reflect on their own participation in a collaborative conversation.
Overall, it was a great experience to use the software and I am going to use this software again in my classroom. It is my hope that it will get easier to use, the more that I use the software. I was lucky to have a good partner to collaborate with!